


Somewhere There's Blue

by Linden



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Pre-Series, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-17 10:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2307116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linden/pseuds/Linden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean was just gonna go ahead and call this one: evenings which ended with Sam in a river were not evenings which had gone too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授权翻译】Somewhere There's Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5024005) by [Milfoil_c](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milfoil_c/pseuds/Milfoil_c)



> Title hails from Gregory Alan Isakov's marvelous song _Time Will Tell._ Gonna get off the Isakov train one of these days, really I will.

**April 1995**

 

Dean was just gonna go ahead and call this one: evenings which ended with Sam in a river were not evenings which had gone too well.

It's not as though the week before had been much better, mind—bad food, worse weather, their father hunting in Chicago and the two of them tucked up for days at a crap motel in a godforsaken corner of northwest Indiana, with no car and no school and nothing outside save for a gas station and quickie mart a two and a half mile walk down 41. The TV had crapped out their second night there, the newspaper at the front desk had trumpeted news of another mutilated corpse along the Chicago river every morning, and Dean had been climbing the fucking _walls_ by the time John had finally shown up again, ready to pile them into the car and head two hours north into the city. It was a waterwalker that had been dropping bodies, their father was sure of it, and while waterwalkers were a bitch to track they were easy enough to take down, once you found them: two bullets to the heart (left side, not right), lead and silver both. It would make good target practice for Sam.

And, you know, it probably _would_ have made good target practice for Sam, it really would have, had they not discovered when they’d run it to ground late that night that it wasn't a waterwalker at all, but instead something shaggy and strong and fast and fucking  _clever_ and not inclined to go down easy.  For the next half an hour it had not, in fact, been inclined to go down at all, and the game of murderous hide-and-go-seek it played with them on the North Branch Trail ended only with Dean narrowly avoiding being crushed to death beneath a pine tree (seriously, the fucker had pushed a _tree_ at him) and Sam doing his best imitation of a fishing fly without the benefit of a line—though not until the kid had managed to hamstring the son of a bitch half a heartbeat before it had sent him flying toward the water, because Dean’s baby brother was, on occasion, a freakin' rock star. Their father had run the bleeding, roaring thing down and Dean, clawing his way past needle-y branches, had run for Sam; by the time he’d half-fallen, half-slid to the waterline, heart in his throat, their father's gun had fired three short bursts, loud and close, and the thing's death wail had stood every hair on Dean's body on end, and Sam was slogging through the knee-deep shallows and climbing out onto the bank, soaked through to the skin in the early April dark and shaking.

‘Sammy!’

‘M okay,’ he managed, teeth chattering, and Dean dropped easily to his knees on the damp grass, ran anxious hands over his little brother’s arms and ribs, checking him for injuries. Sam batted irritably at him as Dean patted his legs down. ‘Dean, seriously, c-cut it out; I’m fine—’

‘You just crash-landed in the goddamned river like a lawn dart, Sammy.’ He cupped his brother’s small skull in his hands, feeling for bumps or blood, wished there were enough light that he could get a look at his eyes, check the size of his pupils. ‘You hit your head at all? Feelin’ queasy or anything?’

‘Dean, I’m _fine_. Just—just c-cold, and I—’ He had his thin arms wrapped around himself now, was tugging free of Dean’s grip and turning to scan the wet grass, nervous and upset. ‘You gotta—Dean, you gotta help me find my knife; I dropped it and I don’t—d-don’t know where it—’

Dean made an exasperated sound in the back of his throat. ‘Jesus, Sammy, I don’t care about the fuckin’ kni—’

‘Dad will, you know he will, please, just—’ 

‘Okay, hey. Hey.’ Dean pulled him back around to face him, shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around Sam’s shoulders; his brother made a soft, wounded sound at the sudden warmth and huddled into it like a blanket. ‘I’ll look, okay? Just stay put.’

The horned moon was throwing out only a little bit of light, and Dean had lost his flashlight an hour ago, and the kid had covered, like, twenty yards mid-air before he’d taken a header into the water—but chance or luck or some benevolent god was with him, because it was only a couple of minutes before Dean found the knife winking up at him from the grass, sticky with blood and ten feet from the water line. He cleaned it against his jeans and shoved it through his belt and went back to his brother, who sagged in relief, visibly, as he saw it. And Dean wished to high holy heaven he could tell him it wouldn't have mattered in the slightest, that their dad would only have cared that Sam hadn't been hurt, not that he'd dropped his weapon, but—well, Dean didn't often lie to his little brother, and he knew their father as well as Sammy did.

‘C’mon,’ Dean said, wrapping an arm around Sam’s skinny shoulders and pulling him in against his side. ‘Jesus _Christ_ , little brother, you are cold. Okay. C'mon. Gonna get back to the car and get you dried off, all right?’ He ruffled his Sam’s soaking hair. ‘And you were fuckin' awesome out here, by the way,' he added, and caught just the edge of his shy, sweet, utterly bone-weary smile as his little brother glanced up at him in the dark. He could see their father, dimly, farther down the bank, hauling a shaggy, human-like corpse toward the water-line by its ankles, and towed Sam in the opposite direction, back up onto the trail to hurry him along the half mile to where they'd left the car at Horner Park. It was hard to see, and it was really chilly for April, and Sammy was stumbling with cold and exhaustion both as they walked, but they made it in about ten minutes, all the same. Dean popped the trunk and hauled out their duffel as soon as they reached the car. Sam leaned against him, shaking, and in the dim yellow light of the security lamps along the curb, his mouth was turning blue. Dean stripped him as swiftly and efficiently as he had when he was a little kid, got him toweled off and bundled into his flannel sleep pants and two pairs of socks and his trainers and a long-sleeved tee and a hoodie, then pushed him into the back seat with a camping blanket, and piled the kid’s wet crap and his wet jacket into a garbage bag and tossed it into the trunk. He tucked Sam’s knife back where it belonged in their arsenal, kept his own weapons on him, slammed the trunk shut as their father came jogging toward them across the gravel lot. There were sirens in the distance; Dean had no idea whether they had anything to do with them, but they weren't going to linger long enough to find out.

'Dad, the fuck _was_ that?' he demanded, tossing their dad the keys, and John shook his head.

'Don't know,' he said, tightly. 'I'll take a look at one of the bestiaries next time we're at Bobby's. But bullets killed it, and its bones seem light enough that it'll get pulled out clean into the lake, long as it doesn't get caught on anything heading downstream.' He sighed. 'And as long as no one _sees_ the damn thing, obviously. You boys both all right?'

Dean nodded, once. The sirens were getting closer, and yeah, those probably had something to do with them. Someone had heard the shots, most likely, or that thing wailing as it died; it's not like there were any houses right here, but shit like that carried, especially along water, especially at night. He scrubbed a tired hand over his eyes. Civilians. Jesus, you get rid of the monster eatin' their neighbors on a regular basis, and they call the friggin'  _cops_.

'In,' John said, nodding at the car, and though Dean knew their father probably meant for him to take shotgun, as he usually did these days, he slid in beside Sam in the back all the same. His little brother had wrapped himself up in the blanket like a small, sweet-faced burrito, and the kid looked up, startled and happy, as Dean settled in and lifted an arm to let him curl into his side. Dean had hit his growth spurt early—at sixteen he was already six feet, with shoulders nearly as broad as their father’s—but Sam was still short and skinny and lithe, small for almost twelve, and it was still easy for him to tuck under Dean’s arm and burrow in close.

'Okay?' Dean asked quietly.

Sam nodded. But ‘Cold,’ he whispered, as their father got them out of the parking lot and heading south on W. Montrose—and oh, hey, look, there were the cops, screaming north past them for the park. Best of luck, fellas.

‘Be warmer in a bit,’ Dean promised, though he wasn’t certain how true that would be. The heater core had crapped out on them a day before they'd landed in that crap motel in Indiana, and it didn't seem as though John had had time to find a replacement for it, because Dean could see his breath frosting in the chilly air. He shifted a little so that Sam could tuck himself up right against his ribs—one skinny arm sneaking out from the blanket to wrap around Dean’s waist, small dark head tucked securely beneath his chin—and ignored their father’s mildly disapproving glance in the rearview mirror with more than a little irritation. John may have decided six months ago that Sammy was getting too old to keep using Dean as his personal pillow on motel couches and in the car, but _Dean_ certainly hadn’t, and tonight the kid was half-frozen and had landed in a fucking river and had already been tired before they'd ever gone out after whatever the hell that thing had even been. For all he cared, his little brother could have crawled right into his lap if he’d felt like it. ‘You wanna close your eyes for awhile, Sammy?’

Sam nodded against his chest, wordless, shivering, but Dean didn’t think the kid was going to manage more than a light doze on the drive, if that—too cold (and, if he felt anything like Dean at the moment, also too fucking _hungry_ ) to really fall asleep, no matter how exhausted his body was. Dean reached down into the door pocket hoping to find that there was still a bag of M&Ms or something in there that they could share, but he was already pretty certain he’d tossed the kid the last one earlier that afternoon, and, sure enough, he came up with nothing.

‘Dad, we got any food up front?’ he asked, quietly, smoothing an absent hand over Sammy’s hair as his brother shifted a little, hopeful. ‘A protein bar or chocolate or somethin’?’

One hand on the wheel and eyes mostly on the road, John leaned to rummage briefly in the glove box, met Dean’s eyes again in the rearview mirror a moment later, this time in apology. ‘Sorry, kiddo,’ he said, as quietly. ‘Got bread and eggs in the room, though, and coffee and OJ to go with them. About twenty minutes, all right?’

Another night, Dean might have asked him to stop at a drive-thru or gas station anyway—he hadn’t had a chance to eat since breakfast, they'd all skipped supper, and he could hear Sam’s stomach rumbling—but he knew they were entirely out of cash, and close to the credit limit on both their cards, and they were gonna need to get gas for the car in the morning. ‘Yeah, okay,’ he said instead, and tilted his head back against the seat back, one hand still in Sam’s wet hair. His little brother didn’t seem to mind, just stayed tucked in close against Dean’s side, dozing a little, startling awake every time they hit a pot hole, still shivering now and again with cold. Dean wished they had a warmer blanket for him.

Five minutes tumbled by, ten, fifteen. Dean was starting to come down from the hunt by now, aches and a long day's worth of work and weariness creeping up on him, but he didn’t close his eyes, just kept watch out the window as they drove deeper into the city’s heart. He grew ever more wary as the minutes ticked by. ‘Dad?’ he finally asked, quietly.

‘Not the best neighborhood,’ his father agreed, in what Dean felt was an understatement analogous to a description of werewolves as ‘not vegetarians.’ The cars parked along the curbs were looking increasingly as though they belonged up on cinder blocks or in Bobby’s scrapyard; too many of the houses had windows boarded up; too many of the damn streetlights were out; and the folks they passed in the resultant great gaping pools of shadow did not, to Dean’s practiced eye, look like fine, upstanding citizens out for an easy evening stroll, seeing as how most fine, upstanding citizens out for an easy evening stroll generally weren’t _packing_. ‘But we won’t be here all that long.’

They pulled up a minute later in front of a nine-floor ramshackle tenement on W. Washington. The windows on the first three floors were entirely boarded up; weak light shone, intermittently, from some of the windows from the floors above. All that long or not, Dean didn’t want to get out of the car.

John didn’t shut off the engine. ‘There’s a lead on a new case I need to follow up on,’ he said, fishing out a key ring from his pocket. He tugged one key free, held the other  out to Dean across the seatback. ‘And I’m gonna see if I can hustle us some cash for the next few weeks. You boys get inside. Sixth floor, room 613. Food’s in the fridge, so have some supper and then get to sleep. I’ll be back before morning. And Dean.’

‘Sir.’

‘You stay put tonight. I don’t want you wandering the halls and I don’t want you out on these streets, you hear me?’

Dean wondered, briefly, if his father genuinely thought that he would ever leave Sammy alone someplace like this, but he said only, ‘Yes sir.’

‘And take care of your brother.’

‘I always do, Dad. C’mon, Sammy.’

Sleepy and stumbling and wordless, Sam knuckled at his eyes like a little kid and abandoned his blanket and followed him out of the car back into the chilly dark. Dean grabbed their duffel out of the trunk and then steered Sam toward the door with a hand on the back of his neck, ignoring the eyes he could feel on both of them from across the street and from the men and women lounging near the curb, cigarette smoke curling pale and thick beneath the yellow glare of the street lights. Their father waited until they were in the side door before he pulled away, for which Dean was genuinely grateful. He had a knife at his left wrist and his father’s Beretta tucked into the small of his back beneath his shirt, but Sam was half-asleep on his feet, and all Dean wanted to do was get the kid tucked up safe and quiet behind a locked door somewhere, get some food in both of them, and go to sleep. 

He felt his heart sink into his stomach as he surveyed the narrow stairwell they found themselves in. He swallowed. A dusty bare bulb overhead threw off light that was somehow dim and harsh at once; the lights were out on the landing above.

‘Dean?’ Sam whispered.

‘S okay,’ he replied quietly, automatically, although really, he wasn’t at all certain that it was. There were camel crickets on the walls and torn carpet covering only half of the risers, and the scent of liquor and piss and vomit radiating from the messy trash can beside them was overpowering.  The place was crap even for them, and that was saying a significant something. _Jesus Christ, Dad_.

Sam twined thin fingers into the hem of Dean’s shirt. His voice sounded high and soft and very young. ‘Dean, I don’t—I don’t wanna stay here.’

 _You and me both, kiddo._ ‘It’ll be okay, Sammy,’ he promised again, voice almost steady, as Sam tried to shuffle closer without seeming to. Dean readjusted the duffel on his shoulder. He wasn’t wild about not having his hands free, particularly walking up into the dark, but Sam was small and scared and dead on his feet, and they had five flights to climb to their room. ‘C’mere, kiddo,’ he said quietly, sliding his hands under his little brother’s armpits, and picked him up as though he were still four years old. He was probably going to catch hell for it in the morning, he knew; just because Sam was still small enough for him to manhandle didn’t mean he was _allowed_ to, as Sam had explained to him in great detail on more than one occasion. But his little brother was too tired now to be either embarrassed or upset, and so he just wrapped his legs around Dean’s waist and twined his arms around his shoulders and tucked his small face into the crook of Dean’s neck. Dean very definitely did not rub his cheek gently against his brother’s temple as they started up the stairs. He was just shifting his head, was all.

‘Nothing too exciting to eat upstairs,’ he said. ‘Eggs and toast gonna be okay?’

 Sam nodded, wordless.

‘Awesome. Eggs and toast I can do. ‘F we end up staying here for a bit we’ll go out for some groceries tomorrow when Dad gets back, okay? Spring for some Oreos, maybe.’

‘Dad’ll never let us get any.’

‘Yeah, well, if we’re the ones shoppin’, Dad doesn’t need to know, does he?’ He could feel Sam’s hesitant smile against the side of his neck. ‘And dude, seriously? ‘F you can’t eat half a tray of Oreos in the car before we get back from wherever the grocery store is, you are not my brother.’

Sam huffed a small, sweet laugh at that, shifted a little in Dean’s arms to press his face more firmly against his brother’s throat. Dean let him, without comment or complaint. Their dad would have pitched a holy fit if he’d seen them right now, Dean knew— _coddling_ , he’d have called it, as though the kid didn’t _deserve_ to be coddled now and again, with all the shit that they went through—but he couldn’t much bring himself to care. He was cold and stiff and damp and hungrier than he could remember being in a really long while, and it was frankly nice, and really comforting, to have his little brother so close. They went up the next several flights in comfortable silence, found the door to their father’s room halfway down the dirty hall on the sixth floor. Sam leaned tiredly against him as Dean put him down to fish out the key from his pocket, face smooshed against his chest, arms loose around his waist; Dean ruffled his gritty hair and was turning the key in the lock when, ‘Pretty boy you got there,’ said a smooth, easy voice a few rooms down.

Dean dropped a hand to the middle of Sam’s back to keep him where he was, turned just his head. There was a man lounging casually in an open doorway on the other side of the hall—shorter than Dean, soft-looking, with a good watch all at odds with the utter crap that was this tenement—and he was watching them with a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Dean had seen that look on a hundred men’s faces since he’d turned twelve, had even played to it now and again to turn a trick if he’d needed cash to keep Sam safe or fed. (Not that Sammy knew that, nor was Sammy ever _going_ to know that, and Dean would put a bullet in his own head before he’d ever tell John.) But this bastard wasn’t looking at him; this bastard was looking at Sam, he was _looking at_ _Sam_ , Sam in his too-big flannel pants and too-small hoodie that was too tight against the sweet curve of his ribs, and Dean was suddenly having difficulty hearing past the roar of blood in his ears.

‘Don’t think I’ve seen you around here before, sweetheart,’ Dean heard him say to his little brother, dimly, this man he was going to kill. ‘What’s your name?’

Sam said nothing, though Dean could feel a frisson of anger or fear or both shiver down his brother’s spine. Dean exhaled a slow, careful breath, then unlocked the door and pushed his brother gently through it, swung their bag off his shoulder and tossed it in after him. ‘I’ll be right in,’ he said quietly, and caught a glimpse of Sam’s bright eyes in the dark before he pulled the door shut between them. He stayed facing it for a moment, hand white-knuckled on the knob, blood-hot rage coiling in his gut. _Pretty boy you’ve got there. Pretty boy, pretty boy, pretty boy._

‘What d’you say, man?’ the stranger inquired, voice friendly, casual, as though he did this sort of thing _all the fucking time_. Dean heard him coming closer. ‘I’ll give you fifty for him for an—’

Dean pulled his father’s gun easily from the back of his jeans as he turned. The other man took a long, swift step back, hands raised. ‘Hey, man, easy, easy, I was just—’

The click of the safety being thumbed off was loud in the quiet hall. ‘You ever look at my brother again,’ Dean said, very softly, ‘and I will put a bullet in your brain.’ 

‘Yeah, yeah okay,’ he said, still backing up, slow and careful. ‘Sure thing. Not a problem. Didn’t know he was your brother, man; just thought—It was just a question, right?’

‘Wrong one to fuckin’ ask.’           

Nodding, the man reached his own door, threw a quick look inside before he ducked in and closed it, and Dean could hear a deadbolt thud into place. He lowered his arms, slowly, thumbed the safety back on but kept the gun in his hand; there was a knot of men all the way down the hall now looking at him, too far for him to read their faces, close enough for them to see the gun. He hoped—Jesus God, he hoped—that Sam hadn’t heard any of that through the door, but the kid was standing just inside when he opened it, head down, face flushed. Dean locked the knob and threw the deadbolt behind him. The security chain was broken, but he couldn’t have used it anyway, not if their father were planning to come back before morning; for the time being, he dragged a beaten up chair over from the small kitchenette, jammed it beneath the knob. He could still feel rage coiling hot and thick in his gut, and breathed through it, carefully, until he was sure his voice was steady. Then: ‘You do not leave this room without me,’ he said quietly. ‘You understand?’                         

Sam nodded, silent. Dean fisted a hand in his tee and pulled him close for a moment, held him there until they both stopped shaking. ‘S okay,’ he promised quietly, and then pushed him gently toward the bathroom. ‘Hit the shower,’ he said. ‘Stay in there until you warm up, and then get into some clean pyjamas. I’m gonna lay the salt lines and set the wards and see what Dad left for supper.’

What Dad had left for supper, he realized several minutes later, was crap. His usual camping/cooking supplies were on the counter—collapsible frying pan, small plate, small bowl, foldable utensils, mug and cup, a battered hotpot—and there were a few packets of instant coffee on the counter, but there was nothing in the cabinets, and only two pieces of bread, three small eggs, a few restaurant packets of butter, and a little OJ in the little fridge. _Goddamn it, Dad._ Dean stood looking at the eggs and OJ and bread for a long moment, his empty stomach a hard, hollow knot behind his ribs. There wasn’t enough for both of them. There very clearly wasn’t enough for both of them, and he didn’t—he needed—he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, hand clenching painfully around the top of the refrigerator door. This wasn’t—this wasn’t _fair._

He heard the water shut off in the bathroom. He stood quietly for a moment longer, fighting back tired, helpless tears, then scrubbed a hand across his face and pulled the food out of the fridge and used the frying pan to heat up some water for the coffee, poured the juice and set it on the table for Sam, tossed the empty bottle into a bin below the sink. It was already eleven o'clock. _Dad’ll be back before morning. Five hours, maybe six; seven or eight until we leave. ‘S fine. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine._ The place didn’t have a toaster, so he buttered the bread and put it on to fry, and was sliding two pieces of toast onto a plate as Sam shuffled out of the bathroom.

‘Toast and three eggs, kiddo,’ Dean announced, pointing his brother toward the juice at the small table. ‘Supper of champions. How do you want ‘em?’

Sam knuckled at his eyes, too-long sleeves covering his fists. ‘C’n I have scrambled?’ 

‘Sure. Got no milk or cheese, though.’

‘S okay.’ Sam slumped sleepily into one of the folding chairs at the table, sipped at the cup of OJ, held it out to Dean. ‘D’ you want some juice?’

‘Nah. I got coffee.’  Dean put the empty egg carton back in the fridge, as though there were still more eggs in there to keep cool, because Sam realizing how little food they had was not part of his genius game plan this evening. Then he cracked the eggs into the bowl and whisked them up pale and frothy with a fork, tipped everything into the frying pan and turned the heat on low. Sam liked his scrambled eggs salty and creamy and sharp with melted cheese; while finding salt was rarely a problem in their happy household, the best Dean was going to be able to do without milk and cheddar was _soft_ , and frankly _not stuck to the pan_ was going to be a bitch without any more butter. Ignoring the cramping in his stomach, he sipped at his coffee—it wasn’t food, but it was hot and it was caffeinated, and that had to count for something—poked at the eggs now and again until they were respectably fluffy, then piled them onto the toast and brought the plate over to his brother.

‘Eat while they’re hot,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna grab a shower first and make myself somethin' later. Get into bed when you’re done, okay?’

Sam nodded, tucking happily into his meal. ‘S really good,’ he announced a second later, around a mouthful of hot eggs and toast, and Dean smiled at him and took his coffee and hollow stomach into the bathroom. The stall was dirty and the water lukewarm, but it got the dried mud off his skin , so Dean wasn’t complaining too much. He had to sit for a moment on the closed toilet seat when he got out, lightheaded and a little nauseous, and put his head between his knees. He briefly considered going down to the Shell he’d seen on the way in—stealing a pack of peanut butter crackers from a gas station was a talent he’d honed by the age of seven—but leaving his brother alone in this crap motel was not high on his list of things that seemed like a good idea. Leaving his brother alone anywhere within twenty miles of this crap motel was not high on his list of things that seemed like a good idea, and he sure as hell wasn’t taking him on a walk through this neighborhood in the middle of the night. So. _‘S just a few more hours. It’s nothing. I’ll be fine._ Because his father would be back before morning. His father would be back before morning, and then they were going to get the hell away from this place where grown men offered him money for his baby brother in the hallway, and they would stop for breakfast at the first Biggerson’s they saw. He’d eaten this morning. He would be perfectly fine until tomorrow.

He dried himself off and pulled on sweats and a tee from the duffel Sam had left for him by the shower and went back out into their chilly room. Sam was standing in front of the open mini fridge, the empty egg carton in his hand. He looked up at Dean, stricken. ‘There’s no more eggs.’

 _Damn it._ ‘Sam—’

‘I just—I was going to get everything out for you, and there’s not—there’s no more eggs and I can’t find any bread and—’

'Sammy, it's not that big a deal; I'll eat in the—'

'It _is_ a big deal!' his little brother replied. 'Dean, why—why did you give me all the _food_?' 

‘'Cause you need more than I do to grow into those ginormous ears and feet of yours.' He tugged the carton out of Sam's hands, tossed it in the bin beneath the sink. 'Now drop it. I'm not that hungry any—’

‘That’s crap _._ ’ Sam's mouth was trembling. 'That's _crap_ , and you know—'

'I said drop it, Sam.'

'But we could've shared the—'

'Shared _what_?' he demanded. 'For Chrissakes, you're eleven years—'

'I'm almost twelve!'

'— _you're eleven years old_ , and you took a swan dive into a goddamned river tonight and the last thing you ate today was a bag of _candy_. Three bites of egg and a piece of toast wasn't gonna do you much good, okay? So yeah, I gave you all the food, and yeah, I'm really fuckin' hungry, but it's not like it's the first fuckin'  _time_ for any of this, so just _drop it._ '

Sam was looking up at him as though he'd slapped him across the face, eyes wide, and Dean could have bitten out his own tongue.

'What . . .' His little brother's voice was shaking. 'What do you mean it's not—'

'Sam, Jesus, please, just—' He was so tired, and he was so hungry, and he couldn't do this, not tonight.  He looked down at the kid's small heartbroken face, and sighed. ‘Look,’ he said, quietly, reaching to push Sam’s floppy hair back off his forehead. ‘Sammy, please, just drop it, okay? I didn't mean to snap at you; I'm just—waitin' for breakfast ain't gonna kill me. I'm fine, really. Okay? So just . . . just go get into bed and warm up the damn sheets, and I’ll be in there in a minute.' He jostled him, gently. 'C'mon.’

Sam said nothing, just looked up at Dean a moment longer, and then looked down at his feet and shuffled silently over toward the bed; Dean watched him for a moment, wishing he could rewind the last twenty-five seconds of his life and not . . . say what he'd just said. Sighing, he scrubbed a hand across his hair, turned back to their cold crappy room. Sam had already cleaned up the dishes while he’d been in the shower, so he didn’t have much to do—just moved the chair out of the way so that their father would be able to get in whenever he came back, checked the salt lines he'd just laid ten minutes ago across the threshold and at the window, turned off the overhead lamp. Tucked his knife beneath his pillow and put his gun beside it. Sam was curled up on the side of the bed closest to the wall, his back to Dean, and he didn’t move when Dean lay down behind him.

'You mad at me?’ Dean asked after a minute, softly. 

Sam said nothing for a long moment. Then, very quietly, 'What did you mean, this wasn't the first time?'

Dean cursed himself, silently, for ever opening his stupid, stupid mouth about food, because once Sammy got his teeth into something he was like a dog with a friggin' bone. 'I didn't mean anything, Sammy; I was just—'

'Don't lie to me.' Sam rolled over to look at him then, his pretty eyes big and sad and serious in the dim light from the bath. 'Dean, you never lie to me; don't just—what did you _mean_? How often—how often have you—'

'I don't even know, okay? Twice, probably.'  Which was a lie, yeah, okay, but sometimes the truth wasn't gonna help anybody, and that was just the way it _was._. 'It's not a—it's not like a _thing_ , Sammy; it just—Dad just forgets, sometimes, how much cash he left or how much food we've got in the—'

'He _shouldn't_.'

'Yeah, well, this isn't his fault, okay? And it doesn't matter, kiddo, seriously; it's not a—'

''Of course it matters!' Sam snapped angrily, and then half a heartbeat later his face crumpled and Dean found himself with a sudden double armful of bony little brother, skinny and warm and smelling like their father’s cheap tallow soap, and it took him a moment to get the breath back that Sam's sudden weight had knocked out of him. ' _You_ matter,' Sam whispered, and Dean tried to tell himself that it was low blood sugar or general exhaustion or . . . or _fuckin' green men from Mars_ that were responsible for the sudden, stupid tears that stung his eyes, but he didn't have much luck.

'Never said I didn't,' he managed after a minute or two, voice mostly steady. He rubbed at his little brother’s narrow back. ‘But c’mon, Sammy. ‘S my job to take care of you; you know that.’

Sam mumbled something against his collarbone.

‘Hmm?’

Sam lifted his head to look up at him. ‘I _said_ , ‘s our job to take care of _each other_ ,’ he told him, hazel eyes still sad and serious on his. ‘You gotta let me, Dean, okay?’          

Dean smoothed his hair back off his little face. ‘Okay,’ he said softly.

‘I mean it.’

‘I do, too.’ Dean settled them more comfortably on the rickety double bed. ‘You can wash all my underwear from now on.’

‘Ew.’

‘Hey, you’re the one who—’    

‘ _Dean_.’

Dean smiled. ‘Okay,’ he promised, quietly, because it seemed to mean something to his little brother, and Sammy had had a long enough day as it was, without drawing out all of this crap into a freakin' Hallmark channel movie. Sam looked at him for a long moment, small and solemn and fierce, before he nodded, once, satisfied.

‘Kay,’ he agreed.

'We done sharin' and carin' now, Winchester?'

'Shut up,' Sam muttered, but he was fighting a smile as he said it, and he didn't pull away, just tucked his cheek to Dean’s chest and twined small fingers around his amulet and curled up snug and close in the curve of his arm. Dean let him burrow in, grateful for his warmth. Their father didn’t have them share a bed anymore unless it were absolutely necessary, saying that they were both too old for it now, but Dean had spent almost every night from the age of five to fourteen with his little brother regularly asleep next to or half on top of him, and he just didn’t see the damn big deal about it. Yeah, morning wood was kinda awkward when it was your little brother wrapped around you, sure, but he liked having the kid curled up with him at night, even so. Sammy was always warm, and he slept significantly better with Dean than he did in a bed alone, and _Dean_ slept significantly better when his subconscious was sure Sam hadn’t been kidnapped by fuckin’ elves or something in the middle of the night, so really, he didn’t understand the problem. He stroked a hand through Sam’s soft hair, smiled at the sweet, sleepy snuffle he made, the way he pushed his little face into Dean’s chest.

‘D’n,’ he murmured.                                                                               

‘Go to sleep, little brother,’ Dean said softly. ‘I gotcha, okay?’

He was pretty sure Sam said something in reply, but it was too soft and mumbled for him to catch, and a few seconds later his little brother was a still, silent weight against his side, small head heavy on his chest. Dean shifted him gently off only when he was sure the kid was sleeping soundly, then rolled over to face the door. Light was leaking in around the edges; late as it was, he could see the shadows of people passing, hear the sounds of drunken laughter, of a fight down the hall, of sex, somewhere, rough and close, with whimpers that sounded like pain.

_Pretty boy you got there. Pretty boy, pretty boy, pretty boy._

He reached a hand up to rest near the gun beside his pillow, and kept his eyes on the door.


	2. Chapter 2

John, bone-weary, got back to W. Washington around 2:00 AM—a few hundred dollars in his pocket, a new entry in his journal, and a solid lead on a run of poltergeists a long day’s drive south in Texas.  He grabbed a sleeping bag from the trunk, not bothering with his duffel, tucked the few groceries he’d stopped for at a 24-hour foodmart under his free arm, then jogged quietly upstairs through the old Guyon Hotel to 613. The room was dim and chilly. There was a line of salt at the window and one crunching beneath John's boot, and his boys were tucked up in the room's one narrow bed, Dean with his hand near the .38 resting just beyond the edge of his pillow, Sam curled up securely between the wall and Dean's broad-shouldered back, safe and warm and sleeping. Dean's eyes snapped open before John was two steps past the threshold, and he felt a warm, gentle pulse of pride in his older son.

‘Dad?' Dean murmured, as he came closer. 'Everything okay?’ 

‘Everything's fine,’ John replied, as quietly. ‘Got some cash, got a good lead on a hunt. Gonna get a few hours of sleep, and we’ll be on the road later this morning.’

Dean yawned. ‘Want me to move?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ll be fine on the floor, kiddo. Sammy okay?’

'Yeah. I made him some eggs and toast earlier.’ He paused. ‘Though that instant coffee you had was crap, just so you know.’ 

John quirked a smile at him as he put the juice packs and cream cheese packets in the mini fridge, then left the bag with three bagels and a box of instant oatmeal on the small table, unrolled his sleeping bag, and crouched to reset the salt line he’d disturbed coming in. He sat to tug off his boots, took his gun from where it was settled against the small of his back, put it beside him on the floor. ‘We’ll get you some non-crap coffee in the morning,’ he promised, crawling into his sleeping bag. He didn't bother to zip it up, just pulled the top up over his shoulders and settled in. ‘Close your eyes, son. I set my watch for six; we’ve only got a few more hours.’

‘You, uh . . .’ Dean cleared his throat, softly, gently. ‘You get groceries, Dad?’ 

‘Mmm. Which you and your hollow leg can wait for until breakfast,’ he teased, gently and tiredly. Christ, he needed to sleep. ‘Get back to sleep, Dean. We got a long drive ahead of us tomorrow.’

Dean was quiet for a moment. Then, softly: ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, and the weary, curious note of defeat in his son’s voice followed John into his dreams.

***

He woke nearly four hours later, gritty-eyed and muzzy-headed, but he felt rested enough for a day’s driving—and he'd be alert enough for one, too, as soon as he got some caffeine in him. He could hear quiet sounds in the small kitchenette, and cracked one eye open expecting to find Dean organizing breakfast for his brother. To his vast surprise, it was Sam who was up, spreading cream cheese on two bagels, the camp lantern Dean kept in his duffel flickering on the table and casting just a little bit of light beside him. Dean was still fast asleep, and if Sam had managed to ease out of that bed without waking his big brother, John had not been giving his younger son enough credit for stealth. He watched, silently, as Sam arranged the bagels on their one plate, made a mug of instant coffee, put out two juice packs of OJ. Brought some water to a boil in the hot pot and added two packs of instant oatmeal, stirred it, turned the heat down low to keep it warm. He looked at the table for a moment longer, chewing on his lip, then nodded and crept across the room, stood almost shyly next to the bed and shook his brother's shoulder and said, softly, ‘Dean. Dean.’

John had seen Dean sleep like a baby through midwest thunderstorms, complete with hail and wind that threatened damage to rooftops. He had never seen him sleep through the sound of his brother’s voice on his name. 

‘I made us breakfast,’ Sam told him, as green eyes flickered open. He pointed. ‘Dad brought bagels.’           

Dean just blinked at him for a moment, owlish and adorable, clearly still more than half-asleep, and then his brain came visibly back online and he scrubbed a hand across his face and smiled—Mary’s smile, sweet and bright—and pushed himself upright in the narrow bed. ‘Sammy,’ he announced, 'you're awesome,' and John watched his younger son light up like a Christmas tree. Easing to his feet, Dean followed Sam over to the beat-up table, faded red blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape, and the two of them settled in, quietly, chairs pushed close together, Dean shifting to let Sam tug half the blanket around his small shoulders against the chill of the room. 

'S up with the mood lightin', kiddo?' Dean asked, softly, grinning as he reached for the mug. 'We on a date?'

John was fairly certain the sound Dean made half a heartbeat later was thanks to getting a bony little elbow in his ribs, though the boys' shared blanket made it difficult to see. 'I didn't want to wake up _Dad_ , asshat,'  Sam said. He looked up at his brother, watching as he sipped at the coffee. 'Coffee okay?' he asked, anxiously.

'Coffee's awesome, Sammy. And so's this _bagel_ , Jesus,' Dean added, around a mouthful of food, because all right, maybe John had never really gotten around to enforcing the niceties of table manners, between the lessons in sparring and gun maintenance. He'd put it on the list. Dean bumped his little brother's shoulder companionably. 'What kind you got?' 

They kept their voices down, barely more than whispers.  John stayed quiet, half-asleep, content to just drift and watch his sons peacefully for a little while. He'd seen so little of them these past few months, only the few days in the car between hunts; he'd forgotten, almost, the expressiveness of Dean's beautiful face, the brightness of Sam's dimpled smile. Dean was listening, sweetly serious, as his little brother explained something with the aid of the juice packs, plate, and two pieces of bagel; John was fairly certain he caught something about moons and Mars in there, but he couldn't be sure. Wouldn't be surprised. Sam still had the NASA hoodie Jim had given him tucked away in the trunk, even though it was two sizes too small for him now and couldn't zip past his breastbone.

'—gonna send a _rover_ , but it won't land 'til next December—'

They'd stay in Texas for awhile, he thought, idly. Once they'd cleared out the poltergeists, they'd catch their breath, stay put until June, maybe even July. He needed to pick up some regular work for at least a few weeks anyway, cash being better than credit when it came to restocking their arsenal, and he needed to get both boys back in school, sooner rather than later. It had been two weeks since they'd been enrolled anywhere, and while Dean never seemed to care much about skipping through schools like stones across water, Sam kept careful track of their transcripts and got worried about falling behind, and he moped whenever they moved on. Might make him happy to be able to finish out the school year in one place.

He watched now as Sam ate his bagel presentation aids, got up, unplugged the hotpot, grabbed the spoon from the counter, and carried both carefully over to the table. He put it down in front of his brother with that same almost-shyness as when he'd woken him. 'I made you oatmeal.'

Dean looked up at him, startled, from where he'd been contemplating the last bite of his own bagel. 'I'm good, kiddo; you didn't—'

'You promised,' he said, insistent. 'And it's—Dad got the maple kind you like, and there's no milk or cinnamon or anything but it should still . . . I used a little more water than usual, so it should still be good, right? Even without milk?'

He sounded so sweetly, painfully hopeful that something tightened in John's chest, sudden and sharp, and Dean just sat looking up at him for a long moment, expression caught between fondness and something else John couldn't quite name. 'Yeah,' he said, softly, and smiled at him. 'Yeah, it'll be really good, Sammy. Thanks, little brother.'

Sam nodded, seriously, took their empty plate and Dean's empty mug back over to the little sink, rinsed them quietly clean.  Dean watched him for a long moment, his face open and gentle in a way John almost never saw it, then tucked into the cereal his brother had heated up for him. John felt something niggling faint and worrisome in his gut. Dean was eating—had _been_ eating, these last several minutes—with the precise, deliberate care of someone who was desperately hungry and equally desperate not to show it, and that didn’t—that didn’t make any  _sense_. There’d been eggs and bread and juice and coffee in the little kitchenette here, he was sure of it; he’d left them there two days ago. But watching his older son’s carefully steady hands as he ate through two servings of oatmeal without stopping, he suddenly couldn’t remember  _how much_  eggs and bread and juice and coffee there had been. Enough for both of them, surely?

'Hey, Sammy?'

Sam looked around from where he was drying off the plate and mug. 'Yeah?'

'You think Dad's gonna quit pretendin' to be asleep anytime soon, or should we throw some water on him?'

John's eyes snapped all the way open, and Dean looked over at him, grinning. 'Seriously,' he said. 'Half-open or not? Your eyes shine in the light, Dad.'

John knew that. John had _taught_ him that. John had also thought the glow from the camping lantern dim enough not to reach him, and was torn somewhere between amusement and annoyance and pride. Dean saw all of that, clearly, because he dialed up the obnoxious factor of his grin to about four hundred megawatts and added an eyebrow waggle, to boot; John did a crap job of hiding a smile as he grumbled about _not pretending, just lying here resting_ and got himself up. 

Finished with his oatmeal, Dean rinsed out the hotpot and heated up more water for coffee as Sam changed out of his PJs; John ate breakfast (rye bagel, strawberry cream cheese) and knocked back two cups of coffee (cheap and bitter, but hot and caffeinated) while Dean got dressed and packed up his gear and Sam's—Sam sticking unusually close to his brother, folding their sleep pants and tees with serious care, hurrying into the bathroom for their toothbrushes before Dean asked for them, bringing Dean the watch he'd left on the toilet tank. They brushed their teeth together over the kitchen sink, foamy-mouthed, and were ready to go by the time John had finished his bagel. There appeared to be a brief tussle at the door over who was carrying the bag, which Dean ended by putting his little brother into a headlock and hooking their bag over his own shoulder and marching them both out into the hall, Sam flailing against his ribs.

Sucking on a juice box, John followed his boys down the long stairs, felt a vague sense of unease creeping up his spine as he really took in their surroundings, the graffiti-ruined walls and torn carpets, litter and what John was fairly certain was the occasional fucking _hypodermic_ scattered across the half-bare risers. He hadn't . . . he hadn't paid much attention, he supposed, when he'd landed here a week and a half ago; it had been a cheap and convenient place to crash for a few hours every night, which was all that he'd been looking for. But this place was . . . Dean stepped around someone asleep or unconscious on the third floor landing, pulling Sam with him, brushing a cricket off his brother's hair as it leapt there from the wall. He wasn't keeping his brother pinned anymore, just had him tucked up close and protected against his side, and John wasn't certain how he'd missed it, upstairs, but in Dean's free hand was his gun.

He was glad a few moments later to get them out into the cool clear dark of the Chicago morning, where Dean tucked the Beretta wordlessly back where it belonged in the glove box and where the sun was just thinking about rising. San clambered into the back of the car and pulled out his penlight and maps.

The gas station they pulled up to ten minutes later was empty.  John got the pump started, handed Sam ten dollars and pointed him in the direction of the mini mart; and his younger son grinned like it was Christmas before taking off across the lot.

'You realize this means we'll be eating Fireballs all day,' Dean said, leaning back against the trunk beside him. Arms crossed, he kept his eyes on his little brother; through the brightly-lit windows, Sam's dark head was just visible above the racks as he went up and down the few aisles. 'And possibly bananas.'

John's mouth quirked, slightly. 'Sammy still on the banana kick?'

'He's a freakin' _monkey_ , Dad, seriously. I made him chocolate banana bread a couple of weeks ago in Ohio; I thought he was gonna pee in his pants, he got so excited.'

John looked at him, curiously. 'You what?'

Dean blinked, a sudden blush staining his fair skin. He shrugged, rubbed at the back of his neck.  'I uh . . . It was just a recipe thing I found, in the paper. When I was readin' up on the case. We had, like, eight hundred bananas on the counter, and the food pantry on Main always had flour for real cheap. Also, you know.' He waved a hand in the general direction of his little brother. 'Banana boy, there.' The gas clicked off; Dean moved to get it before John could, fussed for a minute with the pump, keeping his back to his father. 'Wasn't a big deal.'

For four and a half years of Dean's life, Mary had made chocolate banana bread for breakfast every Saturday morning, and on Sunday nights she'd toasted the leftovers with butter and cinnamon and served them with vanilla ice cream scooped on top. John wondered if Dean remembered that, didn't know how to ask. 

Watching Dean screw the gas cap back on beneath the plate, he thought about his little boy, light-haired and bright-eyed, tucked up warm and snug and happy in his mama's lap with his sweet mouth messy with ice cream and chocolate; thought about the way he'd seen him that morning, wrapped in a ratty blanket eating cheap instant oatmeal from a hotpot, a camp lantern spilling dim yellow light across his face.

He closed his eyes, briefly, against the grief and guilt suddenly shredding him inside. 

'Hey, Dad?'

John blinked himself out of his memories, found Dean looking back at him. His son threw a glance briefly back over his shoulder to where Sam was just coming out into the lot.

'Look, before Sammy gets back, I just . . . ' He scrubbed a hand across his hair. 'That place last night? I know it was cheap, and I know we're not good for money right now, but . . . we're never gonna leave Sammy alone somewhere like that, okay? 'F we're together, fine, I got him, no problem, but we gotta . . . we gotta find someplace safer, the times that I'm with you.'

With the memory of that fetid stairwell fresh and close, John was beginning to think he should have left neither one of his sons alone in a place like that, never mind just Sam, but he only nodded, all the same, and took in Dean's relieved nod in reply. He wanted to ask what had happened—because something had, clearly, happened—wanted to ask about the _food_ , Jesus, whether they'd both had enough last night, but Sam was already trotting back across the parking lot, and Dean was turning away from him to hassle his little brother. John's younger son had a bag of Fireballs in his hand, and there were, indeed, bananas in the clear bag he held, but John could see the rest of their usual road food, too: peanut butter crackers and peanut M&Ms, a few protein bars, a big bottle of water, two cans of Coke. He handed John the seven cents worth of change, held out the bag to Dean for inspection, climbed into the back with it after Dean grinned and tousled his hair and gave him shit about buying bananas instead of Snickers. He had something tucked into the pocket of his hoodie; John couldn't quite see what.

He was pulling out onto the frontage road when a small hand appeared over the back of the seat, holding out a Snickers bar. Dean made an inappropriately happy sound and turned to grin at his little brother.

' _Dude_ ,' he said, and in the rearview mirror John could see Sam smile, clearly delighted at having both tricked and pleased his big brother. Dean turned the bar over in his hands for a moment, happily, then tucked it into the door pocket for later. 'Best candy ever,' he declared, with authority.

'Not as good as Fireballs,' Sam replied, around of a mouthful of, presumably, the same.

'Dude, Snickers could kick Fireballs' ass so far it's not even funny.'

Sam swallowed. 'Could not.'

'So could, Sammy.'

Sam pegged his big brother in the back of the head with a piece of the hard candy. 

'Fuck, ow!'

Sam cackled. 'C'n you do that with a Snickers bar?'

'He's got a point, son,' John said, mildly, and Dean rubbed the back of his head and glowered at him as Sam crowed happily in the back. Smiling, John turned the radio on, scanned through the channels until Jim Morrison's velvet voice came flowing out of the speakers, and listened with half an ear as his sons bickered easily back and forth across the seat. Texas, he decided, firmly. They'd settle in Texas for a few months, at least—rent a house, maybe, if they could find something small and cheap. Maeve might know of something, might even have something to rent them herself; he'd call from wherever they parked themselves in Denton, just as soon as he hustled enough cash for a month's rent.

Light was breaking by the time they got on 55, and the wind came in cool and sweet through the window John had cracked to the bright blue morning.

The road ran on, wide and black, ahead.

 

 

 


End file.
